ABSTRACT
After acknowledging the teething troubles of 1941, more realistic Soviet and particularly post-Soviet Russian accounts have tended to see 1942 as a take-off period in the development of the partisan movement, to a large extent due to increased Soviet investment in the movement and changes to its organisation.1 The partisan movement of 1942 onwards in north-west Russia was certainly able to cause considerably more disruption to the functioning of the German rear areas and inflict more damage on German assets than during 1941, even if the scale of disruption and extent of the damage caused has been exaggerated in much of the Soviet and post-Soviet literature. This increase in success was undoubtedly facilitated by organisational changes to and increased investment in the partisan movement, the nature of which and outcome to which they contributed being considered in this chapter.
